REGARDING your report 'Charity Shock' (LET, April 25), I was deeply concerned to learn of the publicity given to this registered charity which put it in a poor light. I hope therefore that this letter will redress the harm to our reputation.

We were set up in 1990 to take handicapped and underprivileged children to Lourdes at Easter. Our aim is to take 12 children each year, but we are governed by the amount of money we raise - all of which 100p in the £1 goes towards the benefit of the children. All our helpers pay their own fares, hotels and expenses and also take a week of their annual holidays to accompany these sick and disadvantaged children.

We have to negotiate with bus companies, ferry operators, airlines, hotels to get the best value so that we can take the maximum number of children. This means total commitment from a small band of volunteers who give freely of their time to help in this cause.

Unfortunately, with the advent of the National Lottery our charity, together with other charities, has really suffered in public fund-raising.

We had the choice of reducing the number of children we take to Lourdes or finding other means of raising our funds. We opted for the latter and chose to use a commercial fund-raising agency.

This agency, like many others, is a commercial operation and the fact that we only receive 20 per cent of their sales for our charity is not uncommon and is, in fact, a lot better than many national tickets currently being sold.

The only difference is that new charity legislation requires the tickets to contain the percentage donated to charity to be actually printed on the ticket; something not previously required.

Without this money from the commercial fund-raisers, Capital Campaigns, we would not have been able to take the 70 children we have taken to Lourdes over the last six years.

We are governed by the Charity Commissioners and have to make annual returns to them about our income and expenditure. It is not our intention to 'sabotage' any other charities' fund-raising efforts or to stop the public supporting these charities because, at the end of the day, we are all out to give these disadvantaged children a week to remember in their lives.

R J ELLIS, chairman, Halton Handicapped Children to Lourdes, Marina Village, Preston Brook, Cheshire.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.